The public realm is a space that belongs to everybody but nobody is ​allowed to shape it. I noticed that people have an urge to communicate in the puplic domain by leaving their mark at certain spots. Most marks left by people in the city are not welcome and are eliminated immediately. Instead of being active creators of the public domain we are forced to be passive consumers of surroundings covered by commercial signage. Contemporary cities are places of mass consumerism and capitalism with visual representation we take for granted so often. Why don‘t we reclaim the city?
I want to give people the chance to interact with their urban environment and provide spaces where leaving marks is welcome. I investigated several waiting areas where people from different backgrounds stay for a while without anything to do. The bus stop turned out to be a good spot for my project. Working with graphics and text I partially painted bus stops with scatch-off paint and gave a starting point of a puplic conversation. I asked people to react on certain questions like EINDHOVEN NEEDS MORE..., WHERE TO GO IN EINDHOVEN or I‘M CONCERNED ABOUT... I translated everything into dutch to be closer to the local people.

Working on advertisements was much less welcome; these paintings didn‘t even last 24 hours, while the ones on pure glass are still there. This shows that the control mechanism is active and commercial spaces are well-guarded.
By partially covering advertisements I turn their statement into a question. The McDonald‘s slogan „I‘m lovin‘ it“ is now connected to a target, where you can put your cross on a hamburger. In the advertisement for Knorr sauce I just left the ribbon to ask people for their top ten of the Netherlands.